FOR ALL THE FOOLS OF THE WORLD
Maggie H is a Global Explorer and Wellness Advocate from Hong Kong. Among many spiritual endeavors, Maggie practices and leads Qigong meditation to help people around the world find their inner balance. Find out more about this and other Eastern Philosophy & Meditation practices every Monday on the ICBRKR blog.
Story one – the fool in the garden
One afternoon, many years ago, I was sitting in a ground floor meeting room at a hotel in Singapore. The company was having a regional meeting. It was one of those corporate meetings where someone was giving a rather long and monotonous presentation and the rest of us were trying hard not to fall asleep.
All of a sudden, a loud shout startled us out of our collective stupor, “Look at the fool outside!”
It was the president who shouted and we turned our heads in the direction of his finger. Through the floor to ceiling windows, there was a guy in a raincoat holding a hose and nonchalantly watering the garden in the heavy rain.
We started laughing and took a break from the boring meeting. Then the president checked his wristwatch and said, “Guess, his scheduled watering time is 4PM. I'm not sure if I'd fire him or keep him for doing his job despite the rain.”
From his voice, I knew that our president would definitely keep the fool. Without a doubt, if I were him, I would've taken advantage of the situation for being a smart-ass.
Story two - luxury car salesman's credit check
This is a famous anecdote about the late chairman of S corporation who was a well-known auto enthusiast. Occasionally, he would go out on his own to buy cars – sometimes 4 or 5 cars at a time, while the rest of us may buy socks in 4 or 5 different colours when we like them very much.
One day, he stopped by a luxury car showroom and a young salesman greeted him, as he'd normally do. The chairman walked around the showroom and picked a car and asked the young salesman that he'd like to make a purchase.
The young salesman explained different options in detail to the chairman and recommended a lease buyout to save money and the chairman agreed to go with it. The salesman told him that he'd need to do a credit check before he closed the deal and off he went to make a call.
The thing was that the call was made to the company which is under the umbrella of the mega-corporation of the chairman which finances the luxury car company. Naturally, the young salesman's phone call turned the entire financing company upside down. Who would dare to check the chairman's credit, unless it was a prank call!
Recently, the chairman has passed away and I could imagine him patiently letting the young salesman do his job of following proper procedures, as my president watched the gardener watering the plants in the rain.
Often, we feel like it is foolish and meaningless to repeat the same thing day after day when nobody seems to recognise or reward our efforts while some lucky people running past us taking a shortcut.
According to Sun Tzu in Art of War, we can only come up with a successful variation that leads us to victory based on the solid foundation of basic principles. In other words, we can't possibly know which shortcut to take unless we fully master the basic routes.
Roman philosopher Seneca said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”. When the opportunity comes, the fools who are well prepared will be able to take off to reach the next level.
Until then let's stay foolish and focus on what we do today.